Even though Tottenham defeated Fulham 2-0 on Monday night to reclaim the top spot in the Premier League standings, Ange Postecoglou was not quite happy with some aspects of the victory.
The visitors gave Spurs a scare in the last minute after taking the lead through Son Heung-min in the 36th minute, and then doubled that lead nine minutes after the break thanks to James Maddison.
Spurs fans may like reading the Premier League table right now because of their two-point advantage over Man City and Liverpool, but Postecoglou won’t be taking anything away from it. He will, instead, be making sure his players don’t replicate the “worst sort of 45 minutes with the ball we’ve had all year” in the second half.
After their triumph over the West London club, Postecoglou is the manager with the most points from their first nine Premier League games. This stellar record was presented to him during his post-game news conference. The 58-year-old began by discussing his impressive start before moving on to talk about what disappointed him in the win.
After another mistake from Fulham’s defense, Tottenham missed a chance to make it three, which would have infuriated Postecoglou as well. Calvin Bassey had been robbed of the ball by Maddison after a careless touch, but Son got in the path of him and deterred the attacking midfielder when he saw Tim Ream block his shot.
The head coach of Tottenham saw lot that his squad might do better, but he also recognized some positives in their performance, most notably their pressuring, which he praised as “outstanding” throughout the entire game.
Postecoglou is aware that his team still needs to put in a lot of work on the training field if they are to reach the level he desires. He has made it apparent multiple times that this is only the beginning and they have a long way to go.
He will make sure that the players don’t get too ahead of themselves or start taking chances while they are ahead in games because doing so could ultimately backfire on them. Tottenham is leading the Premier League and, under Postecoglou, the team is only going in one direction. They still have room for progress and might get even better along the way.